Thaindian News

By Sujeet Kumar
Raipur, July 13 (IANS) A day after Maoists struck thrice in Chhattisgarh, killing at least 29 policeman, including a superintendent of police (SP), a counter terrorism expert Monday said the state police were at the receiving end because they were not following the basics of jungle warfare.

“I do not want to rub salt on wounds after a spate of killings but it hurts me a lot when they (the police) do not follow the basics of jungle warfare,” said Brigadier (retd) B.K. Ponwar, director of Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College (CTJWC).

CTJWC, based in Kanker district in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, a Maoist stronghold, has trained over 7,000 cops of various states to “fight a guerilla like a guerilla”.

“I have always stressed policemen should never ride in vehicles on jungle roads and should always carry de-mining squads and sniffer dogs graduated in detecting improvised explosives device (IED) while going on operations,” he said.

“Policemen are flouting warfare rules over and again…What was the hurry Sunday for the SP to rush without clearing landmines? The troopers should have avoided use of vehicles and moved in a V-formation along the jungle road but surprisingly the troops did not carry either mine detection equipment or sniffer dogs,” Ponwar said.

Maoist rebels Sunday killed at least 29 policemen in landmine attacks followed by indiscriminate firing. All three attacks took place in the Manpur belt, some 200 km from here, in the Rajnandgaon district, bordering Maharashtra state.

Ponwar, who has served in Punjab, Nagaland, Tripura and several other insurgency and militancy-hit areas and headed the army’s Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School at Vairengte in Mizoram, observed that if one did not follow traffic rules while driving, it could lead to an accident.

“Similarly, if Chhattisgarh police will not follow the basics of jungle warfare, they will continue to meet the same fate as they did on Sunday.”